Spiral Up Games and Aluba Studio’s new release,Cyber Manhunt 2: New World, recently became available via Steam Early Access. While it is still in Early Access, the game has a wealth of content – including the prologue and three full chapters.Cyber Manhunt 2, while appearing like an unassuming hacking simulator, provides hours of gameplay and an interesting narrative that propels the player along.
Mirroring Real-World Anxieties About AI
The narrative follows the work of an AI assistant, controlled by the character, created by and working for the Titan Corporation. Titan’s work with artificial intelligence has been groundbreaking in regard to the integration of AI in daily life, but the implications of losing privacy and detection are becoming exposed to the public. Each chapter has its own miniature story, but all the stories combined contribute to the overall narrative.
The art style has seen a marked improvement from the first game, offering a stylized yet less-cartoonish feel for the sequel. The digital environment players will spend most of their time in emulates a Linux-based virtual machine, complete with terminals and programs (although some are only available at certain points in the story). There are funny nods to real life, with Eson Mulk becoming a frequently-appearing name in articles about technology. Similarly, a popular website in-game is Talk-GPT – sounds pretty familiar, doesn’t it?
Going Beyond a Hacking Simulator
The gameplay remains similar throughout most chapters, but it rarely becomes repetitive. The storyline quickly captures your attention and compels you to continue trying to uncover more secrets (even if you’re stuck on a particularly difficult clue). It’s easy to sink hours at a time into tt, with the average playtime being around nine hours. While players don’t necessarily need any advanced computer knowledge to enjoy it, there are a few commands that may look familiar to those familiar with network administration. Commands like nslookup and nmap are a part of the gameplay; even the sniff command, which is typically considered tcpdump in Linux, is present in certain parts.
Since the player is assuming the role of an AI assistant, there are no moments outside a screen – everything is presented to you via computer, cell phone or another smart device. The hacking that the game revolves around is completed by surfing the web for articles and social media, remotely hacking into smartphones, cracking passwords and scanning photos for important data. What you can search online is limited, so some searches may return no results during the investigation. Each chapter tends to have its own special minigame, for lack of a better term, where the gameplay is switched up a bit at the end. Some examples of these include monitoring traffic cameras, manipulating news, holding an online trial and more.
The end of the final chapter was a complete surprise.There are spoilers ahead, so scroll down if you’re looking to avoid any.Van, the enigmatic hacker lurking in the background of each chapter’s story, crashes an online trial and hacks into Titan (the company that the playable AI was created by). Van directly challenges the AI, moving away from the desktop screen and into computer files.
At a certain point, he calls the AI by the name that you entered at the beginning of the game; for me, it was my own name (Callista), which took me by surprise. I shook it off and continued playing, just for Van to then use my Steam username to address me. While this isn’t inherently new or groundbreaking gameplay (see:Doki Doki Literature Club), it still takes the opportunity to shock the player out of their comfort zone while playing. Part of the gameplay also takes place outside the game screen and on your desktop, increasing the immersion tenfold.
Cyber Manhunt 2: New Worldexceeds genre expectations, going from a simple hacking simulator to a gripping interactive narrative in one broad stroke. Reflecting modern day-to-day anxieties about technological advancement, the game manages to remain modern while touching on intergenerational topics like bullying, harassment and inequality. With an updated art style and improved voice acting, the game manages to offer a bit of something for everyone while maintaining its uniqueness.
Nirvana Noir Shows Off Two Sides of an Attractive Coin
Feral Cat Den return with Nirvana Noir, a sequel to Genesis Noir centering around two different universes, and it truly feels like a bigger bang.
